Why's That?

Why's That? explores the things in Southwest Michigan – people, places, names – that spark your curiosity. We want to know what makes you wonder when you're out and about.

Maybe it's a question you've had for years, or maybe it's just come up. Perhaps it rests on a subtle observation, like this one about ABC streets in Kalamazoo. Or maybe you just saw something, found it strange, and wanted to know more about it. That's what happened in "A Tiny Park with a Tragic Story."

Some terms inevitably evoke the past. Think "orphanage" or "asylum," or perhaps "poor house." If that sounds like something you would find in nineteenth-century England, you don’t have to go either that far back or that far away. Many Michigan counties once had some kind of government-run residence for people in need. Kalamazoo had not just a poor house, but a “poor farm” on land that is now a county park.

Bonnie Nye does not love driving on Interstate 94. In fact, now that she's not commuting, the retired nurse from Lawton says she avoids that road "like the plague." But she does have a question about it.

A piece of art that has stood for decades in Kalamazoo’s Bronson Park is set to come down. Some criticize the Fountain of the Pioneers, as it’s known, as offensive and even racist. It features a "settler" figure who stands head and shoulders above a man in a headdress. In his left hand, the pioneer holds a long, thin object.

Cooper is a common name, but it turns up in Kalamazoo even more than you might expect. There’s Cooper Township; Cooper Avenue in Kalamazoo Township; Cooper’s Island in Schoolcraft. Folk singer Joel Mabus has played the Cooper’s Glen music festival, which used to be held at the Glen at the Kalamazoo Nature Center.

“And then 10 years ago or more it moved to wintertime festival. They hold it down at the hotel downtown. And they kept using the name Cooper’s Glen, and me and a few other people said, ‘why are you keeping that name?”